by John Lutz
"Where is Dobbs now?" Nudger asked.
"He's disappeared."
Nudger felt a growing queasiness. He longed for a nice dull divorce case, a punch in the nose from an irate adulterer.
"Have you told the police all this?" he asked.
"No, Mr. Dobbs cautioned me not to go to the police. So did Mr. Kyle."
"Not Mr. Arnie Kyle, the gambler?"
"Yes," Adelaide said, "do you know him?"
"Only well enough to avoid him like bubonic plague."
Adelaide nodded, brushed back an errant strand of blonde hair that was still damp from the rain. "I can understand that. He came to my apartment the first time Mr. Dobbs was there and asked for the envelope."
"Is this another envelope?" Nudger asked. "What envelope are we talking about now?"
"Two weeks ago Mary came to me with this regular business-size white envelope. She was scared, though trying not to act it. She left the envelope with me and told me to open it only if something happened to her."
"And now something has, apparently. Did you open the envelope?"
"No, when I went to get it from where I kept it on a shelf in the closet, it was gone."
"Did you tell Arnie Kyle that?"
"Yes. He acted angry, though he was very gentlemanly, then he left."
"He was only acting gentlemanly," Nudger assured her. "He probably really was angry. He's the dominant force in bookmaking and prostitution in this city. He's had people killed before breakfast, then had an extra piece of toast."
"That's what Mr. Dobbs said, more or less."
Nudger grunted. "Before Mr. Dobbs disappeared." He rubbed a hand across his mouth and chin, realizing that he was starting to call everyone "mister" like Adelaide.
"Mr. Nudger," Adelaide said, "I need to know what it all means. I need to find Mary, or at least find out what happened to her. And I can pay. I have money saved, and if I have to, I'll use it all."
Nudger absently touched his twisting stomach, rapped a knuckle on the desk. "Why did you come to me in particular, Adelaide?"
"I don't know one private investigator from another," she said candidly. "I picked you out of the Yellow Pages."
"That's apropos," Nudger said.
Adelaide stared at him without blinking. Her wide blue eyes seemed like a child's. Then she brought herself under control and her voice was steady, but pleading. "I need help, Mr. Nudger!"
Nudger gave in. He smiled at her. "And I need money. Let's talk fee."
Ten years ago, when Nudger was a rookie patrolman in the police department, his partner in a two-man patrol car had been Jack Hammersmith. Nudger's nerves couldn't stand up under the constant strain and the hyped up life of a Street COD. When his superiors realized this, he'd been assigned to play Coppy the Clown, appearing with red nose and oversized shoes at benefits and children's parties around town. Then Coppy the Clown had been discontinued by the new police commissioner as cutting too undignified a figure to represent the police department. So Nudger left the department and, after a series of short-lived occupations, discovered that, though he wasn't constitutionally fit for the work, using his police background and contacts to become a private investigator was his best hope to feed, shelter, and clothe himself.
He'd managed with difficulty to do that during the past eight years, often acutely missing Coppy the Clown. During those same years, Nudger had developed a spastic nervous stomach. Hammersmith had risen in the department to become a lieutenant in the Third Precinct, and Nudger's most valuable police contact.
As usual, the rotund, sarcastic, but kind Hammersmith had put aside whatever other business he had and seen Nudger. Nudger had saved Hammersmith's life while on the police force, and almost killed him at the same time by frantically spraying bullets around a large discount store after hours while an armed robbery was in progress. That was the exploit that had earned Nudger his polka-dotted Coppy the Clown suit.
"What's with Virgil Hiller?" Nudger asked, settling into the straight-backed wooden chair at the side of Hammersmith's desk. It was a tough chair to settle into; Nudger and anyone else who sat in it felt an irresistible urge to stand up after about ten minutes. Hammersmith was a workaholic and didn't like visitors hanging around his office distracting him.
"What I like about you, Nudge," he said, "is that you get to the point." Desk work had made the once sleek and handsome Hammersmith a portly, florid man; his image had finally caught up with the long, foul-smelling cigars he'd always smoked. "Hiller fell victim to two of man's greatest temptations: money and a woman." Hammersmith scooted back in his own comfortable leather chair. "The two seem to go together, have you noticed? Anyway, Hiller saw his chance to get his hands on both on a more or less permanent basis, tucked one under each arm, and left the city for pleasure-filled parts unknown."
"Anything in his background to suggest he'd do that?" Nudger asked.
"Nope. There doesn't have to be. We're talking about opportunity. And half a million dollars and the woman he no doubt loves, or thinks he does. Even thee and me, Nudge."
"Me, maybe," Nudger said, "not thee. What about the secretary, Mary Lacy?"
"Thirty-two, straight, hardworking, and homely. But then Virgil Hiller was never offered leading roles in the movies either." Hammersmith fired up one of his abominable cigars and squinted at Nudger through its curiously greenish smoke. "You hired to find Hiller?"
"The secretary," Nudger said.
"Same thing; they're a set. You want a cigar?"
"No thanks; I love life. Did a photographer named Paul Dobbs come to see you?"
"Oh, him, sure. With his time exposure photo that showed Hiller sitting at his desk, maybe asleep."
"Or dead. How do you explain it?"
Hammersmith observed the glowing ember of his cigar closely, as if something minute had appeared there that gripped his interest. "Question is," he said, "how do you explain it to a grand jury? The date of the photograph can't be firmly substantiated, and who understands all that technical jargon? I know I don't."
"And you've got a caseload up to here," Nudger finished. He'd heard this story before from the police. He understood their point of view, too. They were undermanned and struggling to cope with a backlog of cases they at least might solve. This was one that didn't warrant much time or effort; Hiller and Mary Lacy were probably thousands of miles away, basking on foreign sands.
"I know what you're going to ask next," Hammersmith said. "What about Dobbs's disappearance? Well, officially Dobbs hasn't disappeared, despite a phone call we got from a certain young lady named Adelaide Lacy. We checked, Nudge, and Dobbs has dropped out of sight off and on for months at a time for the last ten years. Those kinds of freelance photographers are like that. He's probably in Fiji photographing natives for National Geographic, or maybe doing some porno work to turn a fast buck. He's done both those things in his varied career."
Nudger's back was beginning to ache. His ten minutes in the hard chair were almost up. "How does Arnie Kyle fit in with Hiller?" he asked.
Hammersmith wiggled the cigar clamped in his mouth and raised an eyebrow. "I didn't know he did. But I'm not surprised. Kyle's the sort that likes to be seen with any politician. Makes him feel respectable, though I can't imagine why."
Nudger stood to leave, stretching his cramped back muscles. "Thanks, Jack."
"Maybe you can tell me where Kyle fits in with Hiller," Hammersmith suggested, aiming the cigar at Nudger as if it were a smoking gun.
"When I find out," Nudger said, "you'll be the next to know."
"If there is a next," Hammersmith cautioned. "You be careful of Kyle."
Purely by accident, he blew a perfect smoke ring and glared at it, a bit surprised.
He'd always been skeptical of coincidence.
Nudger left him like that, walked through the crowded, noisy booking area and down the concrete steps to the Street.
The place to start was Mary Lacy's apartment. It was in a downtown building that Nudger figu
red would be converted into condominiums. It wasn't exclusive or wildly expensive, but it was a nice place to live, with a touch of aged luxury and plenty of atmosphere in the long, high-ceilinged halls, stained glass windows, fireplaces, and ornate wrought iron. Mary's apartment was on the fifth floor. According to Adelaide, she'd moved in two years go and liked the place. Adelaide had a spare key and let Nudger in.
"She's paid rent to the end of the month," Adelaide said. "I don't know what to do, start packing her things, or what."
Nudger didn't answer. He was nosing around, not knowing exactly what he was looking for, hoping he'd recognize it if he came across it.
He started with the living room, searching in table drawers, beneath lamp bases, behind drapes. He noticed immediately that Mary Lacy's apartment had been searched by experts, no doubt the police. Yet there was an uncharacteristic care with which things were put back in place; the police didn't have to be that careful, having no reason to conceal the fact that they'd searched the apartment.
For the next hour Nudger gave the apartment a thorough tossing. He found nothing that might give a clue to the whereabouts of Mary Lacy or the mysterious envelope.
Until he stopped halfway out of the bedroom, struck by what had been odd about the dresser drawers. He went back to Mary Lacy's dresser and removed its contents, then withdrew the newspaper she'd used to line the bottoms of the drawers.
"Look at this," Nudger said to Adelaide, who was standing staring at him as if reconsidering having hired him. "These sheets of newspaper are dated five years ago. You told me that Mary had only lived here two years. And this paper isn't the least bit stained; it might have been bought down at the corner newsstand yesterday."
"But why would Mary use such an old newspaper to line her dresser drawers?"
"Because she wanted to save the paper, but she didn't want anyone to know she saved it. Even if they searched the apartment, they might not think anything of old newspaper used to line drawer bottoms; they'd be too interested in the other contents of the drawers."
Adelaide was getting impatient, nervous. "But why that paper?"
"Look at it." Nudger held the five-year-old newspaper's front page up for Adelaide to see. It was a special edition of the Globe-Democrat, printed the tragic day Mayor Ollie Lane had been killed in an airplane crash while riding in the back seat of an open-cockpit skywriter as a reelection campaign attention-getter. The biplane was to have spelled out the mayor's initials high in the sky over the city, but something went wrong; the plane began fluttering downward halfway through the capital "L," and exploded on contact with the ground. The pilot's mechanic had wisely disappeared. The CAA had examined the wreckage and determined that one of the wing struts was twisted from its mooring, and the turn at the base of the "L" had caused the top wing to buckle under the strain of the tight maneuver. There was a large photo of the mayor on the front page, trimmed in black.
"So, what does it mean?" Adelaide asked. "After all these years?"
"It could mean a number of things. Did Mary ever talk about this accident?"
"Not that I remember."
"Did she work for the city at that time?"
"No. She was a secretary at a chemical firm. She went to work for Virgil Hiller three years ago."
Nudger began returning things to the way he'd found them, but he folded the newspaper carefully and tucked it beneath his arm.
"What now?" Adelaide asked.
"Research," Nudger told her. "I'll drop you off at your place, then phone you and tell you the results."
After half an hour at the city's main library, Nudger had a late supper and then drove across town to Paul Dobbs's apartment.
Dobbs's place was on the top floor of one of several modern three-story apartment projects that looked like elaborate motels. Their rent was cheap, and seemed like even more of a bargain because they had a pool where boy could meet girl.
Nudger stood for a moment on the third-floor front balcony, looking down at the deserted parking lot. Then he rang the doorbell. Who could say, maybe Paul Dobbs had gotten back from Fiji.
But Nudger knew better. After a few minutes, he used his honed Visa card to slip the pathetic lock and entered Dobbs's apartment. Breaking and entering this was called in courts of law. Nudger's stomach was fluttering like hummingbirds' wings.
What calmed him somewhat was that he knew he wouldn't be here long. He knew what he was searching for and he found it in less than five minutes, the place where Paul Dobbs kept his photography equipment.
It took up most of the closet in the second bedroom: The inside of the closet was a mess; there was undeveloped film unraveled all over the place, and three expensive thirty-five millimeter cameras lay on the floor with their backs open.
A sudden noise from the living room made Nudger suck in a harsh breath, fear clawing at his insides.
Someone else was in Dobbs's apartment, walking slowly toward the main bedroom. Nudger heard the floor creak. This bedroom would be next, he was sure. He doubted if he was hearing Paul Dobbs light footing it around his own apartment.
Nudger eased his way out the sliding glass doors onto the rear balcony. He saw the pool glimmering darkly in the moonlight three stories below.
A deep, amused voice said from the room he'd just left, "Come out, come out, wherever you are." Sadistic and coaxing.
Nudger moved to the side of the balcony, almost running into a huge fern in a ceramic planter, pressing himself against the cool hard bricks. There was no way off the small balcony other than through the bedroom, or by a Tarzan-caliber three-story dive into the pool, and it occurred to Nudger that he didn't know which end was the deep one.
"Getting a breath of night air, are you?" the voice said, nearer, moving toward the open glass doors.
Nudger found sudden strength and lifted the ceramic planter to hurl at the man. Then he had a better idea. He yelled and tossed the heavy planter, fern and all, out over the pool. Then he drew back into the shadows at the very end of the balcony.
A large man wearing a gray suit cursed and ran to the railing, gazed down for a second at the foam and ripples in the dark pool. Then he wheeled and ran back into Dobbs's apartment. Nudger saw that he was carrying a gun.
Nudger waited five seconds before he followed the man's path through the empty apartment. He could hear descending footfalls clattering on the back stairs. Nudger ran as silently as he could down the front stairs. Then he was out the front entrance and racing across the parking lot to his car.
"Hey!" a voice yelled behind him. Nudger didn't know whose voice, didn't pause or look back to find out. He had his key in his hand when he yanked open the car door, had it in the ignition switch even before he was in the seat. The engine came to life on the second try and he sped from the blacktop lot, the right front fender nicking one of the brick pillars flanking the driveway.
He took every side street at top speed in the old Volkswagen, skidding around each corner, checking the rearview mirror on the straightaways.
Ten minutes had passed before he could assure himself that he wasn't being followed. And it was a wonder he hadn't picked up a cop, speeding around like a teenage lead foot. Where were the traffic cops when you needed them? Out chasing crooks? He'd talk to Hammersmith about this.
But if he was right about Dobbs, he'd have more important things to discuss with Hammersmith. He came to a major intersection and got his bearings, then popped three antacid tablets into his mouth and drove toward Adelaide Lacy's apartment.
Adelaide was in bed. It took her about five minutes to come to the door and let Nudger in. She was wearing no makeup and had her hair wrapped in some kind of scarf to preserve her hairdo. Her drab flannel robe was tied crookedly about her waist with a sash, and brown furry slippers destroyed the grace of her ankles.
"Mr. Nudger? . . . What . . . ?"
Nudger looked her over. For the first time he didn't mind that she'd called him mister.
"I've just come from Paul Dobbs's apartment,"
he told her.
"Did you find anything?" She walked halfway across the living room and turned to look at him. "Do you want some coffee?"
"I found confirmation of a sort. Yes, thanks, cream and sugar."
"I drink mine black," said a voice from the doorway.
Nudger turned and saw a small dapper man wearing a checked sportcoat, with a luminous striped silk tie that appeared almost metallic. He recognized Arnie Kyle. And he recognized the large man with Arnie Kyle; he'd seen him earlier in Paul Dobbs's apartment.
"That was good," the big man said admiringly to Nudger. "I really thought you'd jumped off that balcony into the swimming pool."
"Actually," Nudger said, his stomach beginning to pulsate, "I don't even swim, especially with my clothes on."
Arnie Kyle smiled. "That might be good to know." He looked at Adelaide, then back at Nudger. "Forget the coffee. Both of you can sit down."
The large man was holding a revolver with the casual respect of an expert marksman.
Nudger sat on the sofa, and Adelaide sat down next to him. She absently rested a hand on his wrist. He hoped she wouldn't pick up his trembling and become unsettled.
"You're a lot smarter than you look," Kyle said to Nudger. "But as soon as Riley here told me what you were looking for in Dobbs's place, I came to the same conclusion you did. That's why I showed up here, apparently just in time."
"What's he talking about, Mr. Nudger?" Adelaide said.
"Five years ago," Nudger said, "Arnie Kyle was in on the scheme to murder the incumbent mayor so the election would go to his man. The city comptroller, Virgil Hiller, was the only member of the previous administration in on the murder, which explains why the library reveals he was the only member who kept his job all these years. But Hiller was becoming a risk, drinking too much, talking too much. He talked to his secretary, your sister Mary. Naturally she was afraid to go to the authorities in an administration corrupt from the mayor on down. To protect herself she sealed something incriminating in an envelope and left it with you. Dobbs figured she might have done something like that for insurance, so he searched your apartment without your knowing, found the envelope, then came to you and pretended to be there for the first time."